Way back in history, the Whitehawk Causewayed Encampment was built at the top of the valley by the first neolithic famers some 5,400 years ago.

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The whole valley was originally called Baker’s Bottom, meaning valley. In the mid nineteenth century it was all owned by the Hallett family, but in 1882 William Hallett leased the northern part of the valley to his father-in-law, John Chester Craven who had been the Locomotive Engineer for the London, Brighton and South Coast railway – he immediately called it ‘Craven Vale’, and the name has stuck, despite Craven himself dying in 1887.

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The Craven Vale Estate is built on what was part of Brighton’s Sheep Down until around 1825 when it was enclosed for agriculture, being converted into allotments in 1923 when the Council bought the agricultural land from Hallett’s widow’s estate. The Craven Vale council housing estate was built in the 1950s. Monument View and The Causeway were built in the 1990s.

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The private dwellings of Baker’s Bottom were built around the 1870s and 1880s on what had been the strip fields of Baker’s Bottom furlong and Coombe furlong. To the east of Sutherland Road, Brighton College has been expanding since 1849, while the Freshfield Industrial Estate is built on the site of Kemp Town railway station (1869 to 1971) and its extensive goods yard.

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The whole history of the valley was written up in ‘Pride of our Valley’, celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of the Housing Estate in 2013 – free copies are available in the Vale Community Centre.